Is the Web Isolating You翻译.doc

Text B Is the Web Isolating You? Fred Langa It made headlines several weeks ago: Researchers at Stanford Universitys SIQSS (Stanford Institute for the Quantitative Study of Society) conducted a national survey of Web users that led the researchers to the following conclusions: The more hours people use the Internet, the less time they spend with real human beings. ... The Internet could be the ultimate isolating technology that reduces our participation in communities even more than television did. … This is an early trend that, as a society, we really need to monitor carefully. The study was conducted at the end of last year and used information provided by 2,689 households that were enlisted by a random telephone survey and given a free WebTV and free Internet access. In an effort to fi1ter out contamination caused by the fact that the survey was itself Web-based, the final results were drawn only from among those participants who already had some form of Internet access at home or work prior to the survey. The study has all the normal trappings of objectivity and statistical validity, but to me, it appears the researchers interpretation of the results is rooted in a subt1e, but distinct anti-Web/anti-tech bias. This is especially disturbing in light of the wide play the survey got in the national media. Let me pick one glaring example: the study trumpets that 26 percent of Internet users report they spend less time talking with family and friends on the phone -- clearly, a symptom of increasing social isolation, right? But the same study shows that by far the most common Internet activity is sending and receiving e-mail. Amazingly, nowhere in the study did I find anything that recognized what is, to me, the obvious causal link: E-mail simply has replaced the phone for many routine types of communication. The interpersonal interaction still takes place; its just shifted from one medium to another. But the researchers seem to have missed that. Worse，they appear t